1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote work supporting system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacturing industry, a factory section and design section generally have different facility environments so that these two sections are often located at a distance from each other. Therefore, information exchange and communications between the factory and design sections depend upon drawings of parts and assemblies, job instructions or work directions, face-to-face meeting when a designer or design engineer visits a factory, job training, etc.
When an accident or trouble happens in a factory, the design section sends instructions to the factory by telephone, facsimile or the like. If it is not sufficient, the design engineer or instructor goes to the factory to deal with the trouble.
Recently remote work supporting systems are proposed, which connect the factory section to the design section by a local area network such that drawings and job instructions are issued real time, and these drawings are modified at the meeting. When a design problem occurs in a manufacturing line in a factory, a factory worker (operator) takes photographs of a troubled area, and sends the obtained image information to the design section via the local area network.
In the above described remote work supporting system, however, the area the factory worker notices is only photographed so that particular image information is only sent to the design section. After receiving the image information, therefore, the design section should instruct the factory worker to photograph the background of the troubled area or other areas.
Thus, a considerable time is required to finish the analysis of the troubled area. After all, the design engineer needs to visit the factory in order to see the surrounding area of the troubled area and other areas by his or her own eyes.
In short, although the factory and design sections are connected to each other by the local area network, the factory worker and design engineer can only share the information of substantially the same level as the drawings and work instructions and they can only enjoy poor information sharing.
In the meantime, there are an increasing number of companies that relocate their factory sections overseas. This not only makes a longer period required for the problem analysis but also raises a manufacturing cost.
An object of the present invention is to provide a remote work supporting system that can eliminate the above described problems of the conventional remote work supporting system, whereby the factory worker (i.e., operator) and design engineer (i.e., instructor) can share sufficient information so that the trouble shooting period is reduced and the manufacturing cost is lowered.
To this end, the present invention provides a remote work supporting system that includes a photographing means for photographing a work target machine that is to be worked on by a first operator, a first display for displaying an image of the target machine captured by the photographing means to the first operator, a second display for displaying the same image to a second operator, an operation device to be operated by the second operator, and an instruction displaying means for displaying contents of instructions in the first display based on operations made on the operation device.